Television broadcasting technology has improved tremendously since its inception. Today, television signals are broadcasted on the airwaves through cables and via satellite. The number of stations accessible today has increased from one to hundreds of stations. To select a program to view, many viewers simply "channel surf" until they find a channel that has a desirable program. Channel surfing refers to the process of using the channel "+" or "-" key to sequentially view each channel. Although some viewers find channel surfing among hundreds of stations enjoyable, most viewers prefer a more direct method for selecting a program to view.
Some systems, for example, the RCA Direct Satellite System.TM. or DSS.TM. (Direct Satellite System and DSS are trademarks of Hughes Communications, a division of General Motors Corp.), provides a television channel selection guide which displays a listing of the channels typically in numeric order and the titles of the programs broadcasted or to be broadcasted on the channels. A simplified block diagram of such a guide is illustrated in FIG. 1. The viewer or user of the system may then select the channel by entering in the number or selecting the device. The system responds by removing the guide displayed and tuning to the station selected and displaying the broadcasting signals of the station.
This system has a number of drawbacks. The guide provides only the title of the program. To get additional information, such as a written description of the program, the user must select an information button which responds by bringing up a second layer of the menu having the program description. Thus, as the number of stations increase, the efficiency of reviewing programs and program descriptions decreases. Furthermore, many viewers prefer to view the actual broadcast before determining whether to select that station to watch. Therefore, in the RCA system, the user has to select each station to view, and subsequently go back to the channel guide in order to view program titles on other channels. Of course, the user can always channel surf by skipping from channel to channel in sequence using the channel "+" or "-" buttons. In addition, television stations, such as network stations, satellite TV, cable and Pay Per View stations will take advantage of the hundreds of channels that will be available for broadcast. A single source, e.g., a single station, may start broadcasting the same program on different channels as often as every 15-20 minutes to span its audience's viewing time preferences. For moves this is often referred to as "Near Video on Demand", because it attempts to provide the ability for a viewer to select a movie to view at any time.